Bit of a back story first, jump to the bit in blue if you want to skip this
I got my sister into keeping fish about 3 months ago and a week ago she purchased her first plecs, 2x L002 from her local MA. They were tiny about 1" long at the most. She called me this evening (First I knew about her buying them) to say she had bought them and both had died, 1 died within 3 days, she took it back got a refund, did a water change and everything seemed ok. Then the other died this evening which is its 8th day in the tank.
The tank has been up and running for about 7-8 weeks, she says the nitrates are about 30-35ish, temp is 27c, its a 120l tank stocked with 7 x Cardinal tetra, 3x Pearl Gourami, 1x red tip black shark, 2x Corys and 5 mollies. So the plecs are dead
I have told her she is not to buy any more fish for a couple of weeks, keep checking the other fish for any problems, doing regular water changes, probably get herself an airstone (I get paranoid about lack of O2 in my tanks and keep checking water quality. I don't know much about the L002 so if anyone can let me know whether this seems to be a problem with her tank or whether the plecs are difficult to keep.
Anyway back to the point, she wants something fairly cheap (<£20 if poss), easy to look after, won't get too big, looks nice, ideally active during the game and won't be so shy that she never sees the thing. She likes things L14's, L46's and L24s to give you an idea of her somewhat expensive taste in plecs. She will also probably want 2+ plecs in her tank and doesn't mind grow them up from a small size in order to keep initial costs down.
If anyone has any suggestions please let me know.
Thanks,
Matt
